Syndicate baseball.While ownership of multiple teams in the same league is
something not
allowed in Major League Baseball since the Robison brothers transfer of
top
players from their Cleveland team to their St. Louis franchise led to
the
disastrous 20-134 Spiders of 1899, the Mexican League has no such
problem.In fact, incoming LMB president
Javier
Salinas has said he approves of such arrangements, stating that it's
better to
have one financially capable owner of two teams than an underfinanced
owner of
one.Although there's some logic behind
that viewpoint, fans in Puebla and now Laguna would be hard-pressed to
agree
that they're being well-served by owners who consider their local team
as the
lesser part of their respective equations.

We've already seen the
core players of Puebla's 2016 Liga
championship team shifted to Monclova prior to this season by owner
Gerardo
Benavides, whose grandfather founded the Acereros and desperately wants
his
hometown to fly its first LMB pennant this year.Although
the Pericos have brought in enough
decent replacements to hold third place in the South Division standings
at the
All-Star Break, that is more the result of belonging to a division in
which
only Yucatan has a winning record.With
their current 32-33 record, the Parrots would be looking up at six
teams in the
LMB North rather than trail second-place Quintana Roo by only a
half-game in
the LMB South.Not so coincidentally,
attendance at Puebla's Estadio Hermanos Serdan has dropped from an
average of
4,314 in 2016 to 3,241 per opening in 2017, a decline of 25 percent.Then again, the Pericos were last in the LMB
attendance derby in 2015 with a 2,316 per game average so one could say
it's
all relative, but it's been made clear to people in the colonial city
who DO
follow baseball that their team is not a priority to their team's owner.

Now let's shift attention
to the Union Laguna Vaqueros.The Mexican
League has had a presence in the
Torreon-Gomez Palacio area as far back as 1940, with Hall of Famer
Martin Dihigo
leading the Algodoneros to the region's first pennant in their third
season.Union Laguna won another title
in 1950, but it would turn out to be their last.The
Vaqueros were purchased in the offseason
by brothers Jose Juan and Erick Arellano, who also own the
South-leading
Yucatan Leones.The Arellanos would love
to place an LMB team in their own hometown of Mazatlan, but stalled
development
of a new ballpark there has put that desire on hold for now.Unlike Benavides in Puebla, the brothers had
largely
left their Union Laguna team untouched and the Vaqueros have been in
the midst
of a battle for a playoff berth in the LMB North with a 35-31 record at
the
All-Star Break, one game out of the fourth and final postseason slot
with one
of the Liga's more potent offenses.Until Monday.

That's when the Arellanos
decided to ship the Vaqueros' best
player, All-Star first baseman Ricky Alvarez, to Yucatan as part of a
six-player swap clearly designed to load the Leones up for the playoffs.Laguna also sent pitchers Edgar Osuna and
Maikel Cleto to Merida in exchange for hurlers Tomas Solis, Alejandro
Martinez
and Leo Rosales, who have 50 innings pitched between them this year.Alvarez is the main prize, with the
28-year-old
Tijuana product having a season bringing him some support in MVP talks
with a
.330 average, 13 homers and an LMB-best 75 RBIs.The
former Angels minor league has hit 37
homers and driven in 166 runs over 177 games for the Vaqueros since
coming to
Torreon in a trade with Tabasco prior to last season.The team signed former Padres first baseman
Kyle Banks as a free agent last week, but Banks will be asked to fill a
pair of
spikes that may be a size too large for him.

Then there's Osuna, who
set the Liga on fire in April by
winning his first five starts but hasn't won a game since to see his
record
level off at 5-4 while his ERA (which had been 1.61 entering May)
ballooned to
5.37 with no quality starts in his last eight outings.Still, the 29-year-old from Mazatlan will
give the Leones pitching staff a lefty with 12 years experience, much
of it in
the Braves and Royals organizations, and a former Texas League All-Star.As well, Cleto (who previously pitched in MLB
for both the Cardinals the White Sox) has had a good half-season in the
Laguna
bullpen, with a 3.20 ERA and 4 saves in 5 opportunities over 19
appearances,
and will likely replace former Leones closer Jairo Asencio, who was
released
earlier this month despite being among the LMB leaders in saves.The team also last Friday released Brad
Snyder, another ex-MLBer who was batting .268, was second to Alvarez on
the
team with 12 homers and third with 41 RBIs while playing errorless ball
in the
outfield.

While
this swap
(which has not been officially announced by the Liga office) doesn't
have the
seismic effect that last winter's mass exodus from Puebla to Monclova,
fans in
Laguna have already let their opinions be known.A group of six aficionados released a public
letter posted on the Puro
Beisbol
site calling on others to boycott
attending Vaqueros games, at least temporarily, at 86-year-old Estadio
Revolucion, where the club is sixth in LMB attendance at 5,206 per
opening.Whether the proposed boycott
takes hold or
not, it's unlikely the team will continue to draw at that level now
that fans
in Torreon and Gomez Palacio know how highly the Vaqueros owners regard
them.

It's
hard to
believe this is the sort of syndicate ownership Salinas has envisioned
for the
troubled league he's taking over after current president Plinio
Escalante
retires following the season.Then
again, with franchise problems in places like Leon, Tabasco and now
Quintana
Roo (that's another story for another day), among others, perhaps
Salinas has
no choice as long as the Arellanos pay the bills and Benavides is
heading the
Assembly of Presidents who sign his paycheck.